Lend a Hand
by Neminis
Summary: Because wrapping a gift with just one hand can be quite difficult. Oneshot!


**Lend a hand**

_Because wrapping a gift with just one hand can be quite difficult._

_**Disclaimer: I don't own ONE PIECE.**_

His cries of frustration could be heard throughout the ship, but the crew tried to ignore it anyway, not knowing how to handle the situation. It wasn't everyday that your captain lost an appendage trying to save the boy, he considered his own son. Should they congratulate him on his courage, pity him, throw a party or just flat-out ignore the whole accident?

Even with his usual, cheerful grin still in place, they noticed the difficulty he had while climbing the rigs, the small glimpses of pain that crossed his face when doing even simple tasks, the twitching of his eyes when he tried to grab something with the hand that just wasn't there any more...

But nobody, not even Ben, knew what to do about their boss. And so they watched and waited for an epiphany to come.

His eyes narrowed, focusing on his goal, as he tried to come up with a new strategy. He couldn't fail! The whole plan depended on his success! Reaching out with his remaining arm, he caught the corner of the wrapping paper between his thumb and index finger, folded it over itself and tucked it against one side of the small package. The first steps were completed.

He hesitated. This was the crucial part of the operation, the moment everything depended on, so he took a few seconds to prepare his mind for the next step. Slowly he reached for the small piece of adhesive tape that he had stuck to the edge of the table and while still keeping the corner of the gift paper against the side of the box with his index finger, he tried to snatch the sticky piece of plastic. Patiently he edged his thumb closer and closer to it, working his way towards his goal.

Just to fail miserably, because the sticky tape had chosen to get intimate with the rest of the table, efficiently preventing Shanks from even slipping a fingernail between it and the wooden surface, just scratching the side that wasn't sticky.

Frustrated he used his whole hand to tear at the traitorous plastic tape, which in turn left the gift wrapping paper to its own devices, which unfolded itself, ruining his whole work so far.

He had lost. Against a small piece of paper and an even smaller piece of plastic. The red haired pirate almost slammed his head unto the desk. Almost. He had more dignity than that. That and he didn't need his head to hurt as much as his pride did.

So he lowered his head slowly to rest on his forearm, sighed and closed his tired eyes. Stupid paper. Stupid tape. Stupid arm, that got bitten off. Stupid...

"You seem to be in quite a pinch.", a voice spoke into his right ear, efficiently crashing his train of thought and causing a small heart attack. His head snapped up as he stared at the intruder, that had so impolitely interrupted his sulking. Hovering just a few centimetres over his right shoulder was Jo, their ship-doctor, looking smug as ever and grinning like a shark that just ate a wolf. "Damn, woman, don't scare me like that! My hair almost fell out." Laughing, she leaned back and held her hand up in a sign of surrender, answering : "No worries, boss, it's still all there. Fluffy like a cute little white lamb and red like a signal fire." She took a strand of his hair between her fingers and twirled it. " Honestly, where is that hat of yours? At least that dampened the glare a bit", she teased. Mirroring her playful smile, he swatted her hand away. "Oh, you're just jealous", he replied, sticking his tongue out, "because you are already old and grey and will die a bitter virgin."

She mock-punched his shoulder, glaring slightly: " Oh grow up, old man. One would think you would stop being that childish after hitting forty or so... " Shanks raised an eyebrow at that. Ignoring the accusing look on his face, the woman, that he just knew was older than him, even if she refused to talk about her age, continued: "The only grey in my hair comes from worrying about you guys. You, with your drinking and Navy-mocking and...", she went silent as she caught sight of the small box resting on the table. " And just what is that supposed to be?" "It's a gift for Luffy. I only need to wrap it", Shanks answered, oddly quiet and perhaps blushing. But you could never know with his hair, it could just be a trick of light.

Curious as she always was, she reached for it, turning it carefully in her hands. "And just how did you try to wrap it? Looks like a sea king swallowed and spit it out again. And what are those?", she stared at a series of small scratches on the edge of the paper. The red haired man shrugged. "Fork.", he replied simply. "Fork? Why would you need a fork to wrap a gift?!", Jo asked incredulous. She stared at her captain, who pointedly looked at some small spot on the wall just above her left shoulder. Her gaze moved slowly from his face, to his shoulder, to the small stump, where his arm had been.

" Captain", she began slowly, " why is there a noodle fork tied to your arm?" Shanks didn't reply, now positively blushing, and continued his wall staring. Did that black spot look like a fish? And that other one, was that a bullet hole? Why were there bullet holes in his wall?!

Awkward silence spread between the two pirates.

Seconds passed in which even the cries of the seagull above the ship seemed deafening, then Jo started to laugh. It was a full throttle, stomach hurting laugh, that seemed to go on forever, while she had to brace herself against the table, not wanting to loose her balance and crash to the floor. It shook her whole body, causing her lungs to plead for air and her cheeks to redden with blood, now. Any other day he would have joined her, but now he just felt embarrassed. Something that didn't happen often, as he normally managed to laugh of any awkwardness easily. Needless to say that he didn't like that particular feeling.

"Are you pouting?", she just managed to suppress her laughter long enough to ask that, before continuing into a new set of giggles, doubling over. He liked her laugh, loved to cause it even more, since unlike the laugh of other women it was free, honest, roaringly loud and positively embarrassing for her, hence why she never used it much before joining his crew. It wasn't like a lady to laugh like a drunken sailor, she had mocked her mother's word as she had told him the story on one of the long, difficult nights after he had lost his arm.

He had been lying fever ridden in his cabin, nobody knowing if he would survive, with her trying to dull the pain, stop the fever and get him back into conciousness. The gangrene had been worse than any of them would have guessed. They had had to keep Luffy from visiting him, not wanting to upset the boy more about the accident than he already was, Ben had always been busy trying to keep the others in line and so she had been his only companion in those dark night hours.

And again Jo crashed his train of thought. Her laughter had subsided and now she watched him with the look she normally used when working on one of her jigsaws, trying to figure out something. "You know, you could just ask for help, right?", she asked cautiously, since she didn't know how touchy the subject was. " Na, don't need any", he answered, waving his hand in a dismissive way, causing Jo to shake her head and sigh. That man was going to drive her mad one day.

"And I wasn't pouting.", Shanks added, changing the subject. "You so were.", Jo answered,another grin on her lips. " Real men don't pout.", Shanks replied. "Oh no, you're right. Guess you still have a long way to go then, huh?", she mocked and looked again in the direction of the small box.

"You sure you don't need any help with the wrapping?", she asked again. "No thanks, I do it myself. I'm not an invalid, just because I lost my arm.", he replied in his usual jovial manner.

While loosing an appendage does technically make someone an invalid, Jo decided to drop the subject. Men and their dumb pride were a strange and foreign concept for a woman.

Shaking her head, she walked towards the door. "That pout was kinda cute. Need to tell Makino about that one.", she muttered under her breath and with that she had left.

Shanks stared at the door even after her departure, trying to figure out just what exactly was going on in the brain of that woman and swinging between feeling complimented and insulted. Stupid women, always sending their mixed signals everywhere. After a while of thinking and not really coming up with anything, he turned back towards the little monster on his desk, sighing .

Now to wrap that damn gift.

Night had descended quickly and quite coldly upon the harbour, befogged the Red Force and sent most of her occupants either in the general direction of the next bar or their warm, inviting beds, so that in the belly of the ship only one lonely figure was still wide awake. Inside the cabin, in which usually the sick and wounded were treated, Jo sat at her desk, organizing and cleaning her sharp operation tools, even those she hadn't used in a while and trying to keep herself from just falling asleep right then and there.

That was getting harder by the minute, but she wouldn't succumb to sleep just yet. She still had some work to do. After she made sure, that even the last of her scalpels of spotless and sharp as a razor-fish's skin she leaned back, rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, yawned wholeheartedly and looked towards the small clock on her wall, that Lucky Roux had gotten her as a welcome gift on the ship. Finally, the small bones of the Jolly Roger flag pointed toward half past one, an event she had waited for since what seemed to be forever.

She stood up and grabbed her white lab coat, put it over her bony shoulders, grabbed a pair of scissors and walked towards her cabin door.

Quietly she exited the room and sneaked towards the small chamber on the end of the passage. Just barely she avoided squeaky floorboards and drunken, passed out pirates.

Gathering all her courage, she opened the door and quietly stepped inside. Just then a warm smile lit up her features, making her eyes melt and a very pleasant feeling rose in her guts. Her captain was still there, passed out on the surface of his table, arm wrapped around a long sharp stick, whose function she didn't even want to think about, he laid there and snored quiet loudly.

Therefore she had to suppress a little girlish giggle, as she walked around the table, observing the work he had done so far. It was pitiful really. Pitiful, but very, _very _endearing. The box now looked even worse than before, with chunks of paper pointing in all possible and impossible directions and a little bit of adhesive tape was caught in the dishevelled mass of Shanks red hair right between his eyes, where it would always flutter up and down with every small breath and snore. Jo silently wished for a camera, because in all the years she had sailed with the Red Haired Pirates and watched their humorous antics, this had to be the single most cutest thing she had ever had the pleasure of witnessing, including the often rather sweet moments between Shanks and Luffy.

But so all she could do was burn that image deep into her memory for future reference and get to work. And so, quietly, not wanting to wake the man, she took the package and started cleaning up that mess that her captain had made. Like always.

The sunshine of the next day found them both, doctor and captain, fast asleep sitting on their chairs. Well, Shanks had fallen of his and fallen asleep once again on the ground and only his leg remained upon the chair, but that was trivial, since both of them would have back pains as soon as they woke up anyway, but, most importantly, in the middle of the table sat a neatly wrapped gift box for a small rubber boy.

A gift, Shanks would later proudly insist on having wrapped himself. And the whole crew would laugh, most amused, other knowingly. Because honestly?

Even before loosing his arm Shanks couldn't wrap a gift to save his life.

_A.N: __Originally I didn't want to include an OC in this fanfiction, but the moment I thought about which characters to choose, it became apparent that there weren't any canon characters that would fit the purpose of the story._

_So I had to make someone up. I hope you don't mind and enjoy. This story is set after Shanks lost his arm, but before their ultimate departure, where Luffy gets his hat._

_I hope you enjoyed, and thank you for your visit. Please review, if you got the time to spare._


End file.
